


Inheritance

by epicycles



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Hale Family Feels, Non-Graphic Violence, What-If, no spoilers for Season 3 plot or characters, terrible implications of canon, the Hale House Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 03:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epicycles/pseuds/epicycles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"That's my good girl," her dad says.  "Do it for Derek."</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What if there's only one way to become an alpha after all?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inheritance

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't seen the S3 premiere nor read any spoilers for the season, so apologies if this has been Jossed already.

She smells it as soon as they crest the hill.

She's driving Derek back from one of his nighttime lacrosse games while he sulks in the backseat next to her. Probably because Laura had pulled him aside at halftime to tell him to knock it off with the superhuman feats of agility. He'd stopped, but they'd lost the game, so Derek is brooding. Or maybe it's because his mystery girlfriend missed the game -- she'd seen him looking at the crowd over and over, scanning the stands for someone who wasn't there. Poor kid, that first teenage heartbreak is a doozy.

He doesn't even look at her as she slows the car. "Why are we stopping?"

"Something's wrong." The scent is stronger now. Smoke. Not wood smoke, not forest fire smoke, but harsher, bitter. There's a tang of something almost like gasoline. 

She stops the car and rolls down the window. It's coming from the left, from the woods. 

From their house.

Derek's looking at her now, wide-eyed and scared. He can smell it too. "Laura? What's happening?"

"Stay here," she says as she opens her door. He moves to undo his seat-belt but she snaps at him, "I mean it. Stay."

He does, thank God, all his usual teenage surliness . She gets out and shuts the door as quick as she can; the scent's so strong out here. She feels sick with it. "Roll up the windows. Don't move until I get back."

She starts running.

The road winds around the woods for another mile to get to the Hale house, but it's not even a quarter of that as a straight shot through the trees. She goes as fast as she can, down on all fours -- she's half-shifted before she even realizes it. With the shift, the scent gets sharper, clearer. And she can hear almost hear it too, a roar in the distance.

The wind sounds like screaming.

Another hill, and she can see the glow, orange and violent against the night sky. It's so tall, it's massive -- the house wasn't that tall, was it? As if the fire is making it grow instead of destroying it. But there's a crack and groan and the flames collapse a little; the roof coming down, she realizes.

It's the full moon tonight. Everyone was at home.

They're not in there. They're not. The Hales may be werewolves but they're not Amish. They have smoke detectors, fire alarms. She'll get to the house and Mom will give her a hug and Peter will muss her hair and Dad will be confident as he tells them how they're going to rebuild. Everyone's fine.

She can smell death and pain in the smoke now. The screams in the wind have stopped.

She's close enough to see the flames pouring from the front door, flicking out of the windows, when she hears it.

"...Laura."

She stops dead, skidding in the leaves. "Dad?"

"Here."

"Dad, oh my God, Dad." She leaps a fallen tree and finds him. Alive. 

Barely.

Her throat closes, panic choking her more than the smoke ever did. "Dad. It'll be okay, I've got the car, we'll get you to Alan, you'll be fine--"

"Honey, no." He coughs, cracked lips black and bleeding. "Don't."

"Dad," she says. She loses the shift as her eyes blur with tears.

"Derek, is Derek with you? Don't...don't let him see..."

"He's fine, he's back in the car. I told him to stay there."

"Good girl." He lifts a hand with extreme effort -- her dad, the strongest wolf she ever knew -- and puts it on her arm. "Look after him."

"Where is everyone else? Where's Mom? Colin and Dana, and everyone?"

Her dad rolls his head slowly to look at the house. "Inside."

She follows his gaze blankly. Everyone. Inside. There's nothing moving in there but the flames. 

"How?" she nearly moans it. "Why didn't they get out?"

"Hunters. Trapped us. Chained in the basement like dogs." He coughs again, fresh blood on his chin. 

Hunters. In Beacon Hills. She can't believe they would come here, they would _dare_ \-- but they did, and they killed everyone.

Mom. Colin. Dana. Aunt Cathy and Uncle Peter. Jason and Sarah and ---

She's crying but she can't feel the tears on her cheeks. All she can feel is the fire.

"Laura. Don't...let them win." 

She looks back at the burned shell of her father on the ground beside her. "They've won already, Dad."

"No. They want to destroy the pack....Missed you and Derek."

"Derek and I aren't a pack, we'll just be omegas -- oh God, what am I going to tell Derek? What are we going to do? Oh my God, what if the hunters are still here, they could find him, he's alone in the car, Dad, I have to go back --"

"Wait." The hand of her father is weak, but it holds her in place. "Not omegas. Alpha and beta."

She can't even understand it at first. "You're the alpha."

"If the hunters kill me, no more alpha. They win. The Hale pack is gone." His hand tightens around her wrist. "Don't let them win."

His claws are digging into her skin. "No."

No. She can't. She knew she'd probably be alpha someday, she was raised for it, but it was supposed to happen years and years and years from now, in some quiet hospital room or nursing home, her father old and gentle and tired, baring his throat in peaceful, willing submission -- 

Not this, not fire and blood and she's only twenty-one.

"I can't," she chokes out. "Daddy, I can't."

"You can." He smiles, almost. "I know you can do it."

"It's not--"

"For Derek."

Derek. Who'll be an omega if she doesn't do this, hunted and alone. Who's sitting in the car alone, right now, smelling smoke and waiting for her.

"Okay," she says, hearing her own voice coming from a long way off. "Okay."

"That's my good girl," her dad says. "Do it for Derek."

He leaves his hand around her wrist. She lifts her other hand, forcing the tears down and the claws out. She closes her eyes.

"I love you, sweetheart," she hears him say.

"I love you too, Dad."

It's raining by the time she makes it back to the car. The fire will probably go out soon. They should be gone before the fire department arrives.

Derek is staring at her when she opens the door, but he doesn't say anything. He already knows, she can see it in his eyes, in the tears he's wiped away from his cheeks. She was gone too long, and the wind was blowing this way.

She sits down, fastens her seatbelt. Looks out the windshield at the dark, wet road ahead of them.

"It's going to be okay, Derek," she says. Her eyes glow red when they meet his in the rearview mirror. "I'm your alpha now."

~~~~

**Author's Note:**

> Sitting around one day, I had a terrible thought -- the only canonical way (so far) to become an alpha is to kill another alpha. So, if that's actually the only way at all, what does that say about Laura?
> 
> Also, Derek says 11 people were in the fire, but the police report only lists 8 deceased. So either there were more survivors, or some of the dead weren't found in the remains of the house.
> 
> So this is basically a what-if meta fic based on those two shreds of canon, soon to be Jossed I'm sure. :)


End file.
